Access Dimensions

Procurement & Supplier Management

Purchase Requests

Many of your staff may be unfamiliar with key aspects of the procurement process (such as product codes and minimum order quantities) – but you can still provide them with an efficient, computerised purchasing system. This module is designed to allow staff with no direct purchasing authority initiate the process, by raising purchase requests. A simple on-screen form is used to detail the required items, quantity and preferred delivery date. These forms can be rolled together, pending review by your Purchasing Manager. Requests can be approved or rejected, before being consolidated and converted into purchase orders. This eliminates the need for paper-based administration and improves traceability, while giving your Purchasing Manager a far greater degree of control.

Purchase Order Processing

Establishing a clear commitment with your suppliers and monitoring their performance will enable you to build a strong and flexible supply chain. Access Dimensions shows at a glance quantities ordered and delivered, check that purchase invoices are correctly priced and print goods received notes. Access Dimensions will calculate re-order quantities for you, taking into account minimum and maximum stock levels and existing sales and purchase orders. Dimensions reports show the value of goods received but not invoiced (and vice versa) so that you can accrue for your commitments. Allocate your purchase order to a specific project and the committed costs for that project will be updated automatically, within the costing module.

Purchase Control

Access Dimensions gives you complete budgetary control over the entire procurement process. individual orders are automatically compared to pre-set spending limits and, where the order fails to meet your criteria, on-screen warnings are instigated or alternative workflow process instigated. Orders processed in this way can only be approved by staff with the appropriate levels of authority. By introducing this extra layer of security, you can help to eliminate ‘rogue purchasing’. Spending is monitored on an ‘order by order’ and ‘line by line’ basis and three methods of control are available:

• Set individual budgets for each member of staff
• Allocate an overall budget to each nominal code
• Force a full approval process on every order raised, for selected members of staff

FocalPoint Purchasing Modules

The functionality of the Access Dimensions purchasing modules are enhanced by the web-based purchasing available in FocalPoint. FocalPoint offers extensive self-service functionality to your users backed up by comprehensive, customisable workflows and approval procedures – all over the internet.